Moving From Believer To Disciple

There is no greater answer to this generation than a believer who is in total surrender. We are in a time where we cannot be casual about the presence of God. The fire of God does not discriminate about what culture or gender you have. When you get the fire of God, there is a passion and hunger that begins to burn in your life.

We need to break out of the lethargy and complacency that dominate modern life. We need to have fire and passion back in the American church. Society has come to a point in history, where people look back and wonder why was there more excitement when I was at the raves, clubs, and bars, then when I am born again in the church?

When I look in the Old Testament, I see people who had fire, passion, and encounters with God. That is what we want. That is what we need in today’s church but they were willing to do something others are not. There were supposed to be 500 people in the upper room when the Holy Spirit was poured out but only 120 made the decision to be there for the Holy Spirit to move. They waited 10 days in the upper room but how many of us today can wait even 10 minutes in the presence of God?

The Devil’s Agenda

We have such a low capacity for things that are spiritual but we can spend hours on entertainment. The devil is strategically rewiring the brain of each generation. In America, we have an average of an 8 second attention span. This causes us to constantly look for things and we have a lot of options to spend our time on. But in other nations, we see God moving in more unprecedented ways and its common to hear folks say, I wish God would move in America the way He does in other countries. In those places where God moves strongly, their entertainment is miracles, deliverances, signs, and wonders!

In America, the average person has so many entertainment options, why would they choose to spend time on God? We give God our leftover time and claim we want to see an outpouring like the world has never seen before. We are nervous to be undignified, cry out, shout, sing, and praise God. When you read the Scripture, you will see that when people got the presence of God, they became passionate. If you look in the Book of Acts, they thought the Christians were drunk.

Salvation is free, but it costs everything. The discipleship road is costly. Share on X

The Church Today

Today, if someone receives the Holy Ghost, they think it is boring. When we don’t have the Holy Spirit, we won’t do things we wouldn’t otherwise have done or been able to do. However, when the Holy Ghost comes upon you, you become a different person.

The world thinks we are no longer drunk on the Spirit but bored on the Spirit. We have to get back to a place where we are desperate for the power and presence of God that we need Him in all we do because if you can survive without Him, you will.

A lot of us do not have the presence of God in our daily lives because we do not need the presence of God in our daily lives. We are fine without Him and most of us wouldn’t even know if He showed up or didn’t. Many of us go weeks upon weeks with no encounter, no fire on the altar of our lives, no prayer meetings and no move of God. We need to get to the point of desperation where we do not care what others think about us and only care about what God thinks about us.

Casual Christianity In America

I believe we are entering into times when the days of casual Christianity are over. The days of relying on the church to carry us are over. The days of the congregation waiting for the ministry teams to cheerlead them up into faith are over. How would church look if we didn’t have to pump you up and you came into the presence of God with your own thanksgiving, ready to worship and ready to praise. Christians shouldn’t come to church to get fire. You have fire. You should have been on fire all week and then on Sunday, you come to the house of God to join your fire to that of the other believers.

Do you know the people in the time of the Book of Acts actually said Christians looked like people from another planet because of their radical passion for God? The world literally called them aliens and pilgrims. The word Christian was actually a derogatory term the world used to label Christians because they didn’t need to be told; they could see they looked so much like Christ.

“These who have turned the world upside down have come here too.” Acts 17:6

That was what the people said about believers in the Book of Acts. In both the supernatural and natural realms, the disciples of Christ were changing things.

The Cost Of Discipleship

In one of His famous parables, Jesus describes the Kingdom of God as a field with a pearl of great price. When the man in the parable discovered the pearl, he joyfully sold his possessions to buy the field to get the treasure. A lot of us say we have the treasure but haven’t sold anything. What have you given up? What have you sold for that treasure of the Kingdom?

When God calls us, He calls us to a life of surrender. If you say you have never done that, maybe you haven’t found the treasure yet either. But praise the Lord, today we can find the treasure and become the kind of genuine Christians that even the world are going to want to be like. The world is looking for a demonstration of the power of the Holy Spirit. When you remove the supernatural from the church all you are left with is superficial. But I believe it is time to make the supernatural great again in the body of Christ. We will see the transformation when the church quits trying to gain everything and starts losing everything.

Why do I have to tell everybody I am a Christian? Why is it that they do not see it in my life that they immediately notice? When we don’t have and do the Biblical things we have to do to have Jesus in our lives, we don’t get the benefits of having Jesus in our lives.

Don’t take a vacation from salvation in the summer. Share on X

A Christian In Surrender

You are called to be an ambassador of God, a little Christ on the earth, as a child of God. You cannot take a day off from this. The state of the world we live in cannot afford for you to take a vacation from salvation or only being a Christian on Sunday. One of the worst things your coworkers can say about you is that they didn’t even know you were a Christian. How can they know when there is no witnessing? How can they know when there is no change of life or passion? God is not looking for weekend visits; He is looking for full custody.

Surrender is saying God I will give You everything. If You want me to keep anything it is up to You. Give God everything and allow Him to change your life. Allow God to cleanse you of all distractions. That is surrender. That is being sold out. However, after we have that encounter and find the treasure, what often happens is we start picking up the things God told us to put down years ago. There is only one way to follow Jesus and that is a life of full surrender. A life of surrender doesn’t mean being in the church 24/7, it means living in the Spirit 24/7.

The world is in dire need and is actually seeking what we have but we as Christians are not fully sold out that what we have in Christ is worth giving everything for. If you are not willing to give everything for Christ, why would the people you are trying to witness to?

Stop picking up things God is putting down. Share on X

The Church Is The Answer

The biggest problem in America is not a political problem but a presence problem. Our problem as a nation is not that we do not have somebody who is godly in the White House but that we don’t have godly men in God’s house. The issues we face like abortion, are not political but purely spiritual. They will only be solved when the church rises up and goes to war. Churches as the body of Christ have to rise up like in Daniel 10 and cry out to the Lord for His Spirit. The only thing that will make America great again is the Holy Spirit.

Genuine Christianity, genuine fire, a genuine outpouring of the Holy Spirit, and genuine Christians who are genuinely giving God everything; this is what is needed.

I met a man named Jesus and I found a thing that was worth giving everything for. But if you are not convinced the Kingdom of God is worth giving everything for, you won’t share it with anybody. Why would I share the news if the news wasn’t good to me? If it didn’t work for me, why would I tell somebody else about it as if it could work for them? This is why many do not preach on deliverance because they have never experienced the grace of God. The Gospel isn’t Good News when you haven’t fully surrendered to the Gospel. The only way to be a true disciple is to follow the road of laying everything down in surrender.

The Epidemic Of Self-Deception

Many churches are hit by the epidemic of self-deception because we think we have given everything and fully surrendered. We have convinced ourselves that we have but we have not in reality. When Jesus addressed the lukewarm church, He said you say you’re in need of nothing but I say you are miserable, poor, blind, wretched, and naked. We need that holy addiction to God’s presence. What Jesus taught in the parable, was not come to God, get the treasure and then work on your life. He said you discover it, go and sell all you have, then you can get the treasure.

Holiness looks like legalism for the lukewarm. Share on X

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